Gail Frazer and Mary Monica Pulver Kuhfeld were excited about the recent discovery of the bones of Richard III.

"We were huge fans of King Richard, and we were messaging back and forth about finding the bones," Kuhfeld recalled. So she wasn't prepared for the news that Frazer, her friend and former writing partner, died of breast cancer Monday, Feb. 4.

A memorial service for Frazer, 66, will be at noon Friday, Feb. 8, at Fort Snelling Memorial Chapel, 1 Federal Drive, Minneapolis. Visitation is at 11 a.m.

Frazer, whose pen name was Margaret Frazer, wrote 17 medieval mysteries about amateur sleuth Sister Frevisse, a nun at the convent of St. Frideswide in Oxfordshire, England, in the 1400s. A seven-book spinoff of that series featured Joliffe, head of a band of roving actors. Her last book, "Circle of Witches," is a Gothic romance published in 2012.

"Gail was a hard-working writer who set goals and met them," said Kuhfeld, who wrote the first six Frevisse mysteries with Frazer. "She was dedicated to being true to the time period. She liked authenticity."

Frazer explained the Dame Frevisse stories in a 1992 Pioneer Press interview: "We've tried to get into the minds of the people of the Middle Ages; they didn't see the world the way we do. When something happens in a murder mystery we say, 'Aha.' They said, 'God's hand has done that.' Even the detecting has to be done in context of that mind-set.

Frazer and Kuhfeld met in the 1980s as members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization in which members adopt medieval personas. Both women chose 15th-century characters; Kuhfeld was a nun and Frazer the widow of a wealthy merchant from Yorkshire.

At that time Kuhfeld was wrestling with a request from her publisher to write a medieval mystery. Frazer had gathered lots of information but couldn't get a book published.

"I intimidated myself out of writing the book," Kuhfeld admitted. "Gail was so knowledgeable about that time period. I said, 'I'm scared to write this book. Do you want it?' We started working together, and it turned into a collaboration. It was enormous work because she lived in Rochester and I was in St. Louis Park. But it was fun."

Their first Dame Frevisse mystery, "The Novice's Tale," was published in 1992. Their final collaboration was "The Murderer's Tale" in 1996. When the women ended their partnership, Frazer continued to write as Margaret Frazer.

Kuhfeld says she and Frazer parted company because they had different visions for the series, but they remained friends.

"Gail had a darker, more realistic vision of life in 15th-century England," said Kuhfeld, who writes the contemporary Betsy Devonshire Needlecraft mysteries.

In 1999, Frazer hit the big time when the Frevisse series made the important jump from paperback to hardcover with "The Reeve's Tale."

Besides writing, Frazer's passion was the theater. She appeared at the Guthrie, Theater in the Round and the American Shakespeare Repertory.

Frazer was diagnosed with the first of five bouts of breast cancer the year "The Novice's Tale" was published.

"Gail was so nonchalant about her cancer," Kuhlfeld recalled. "She never complained. We thought she had it cured."

Even after Frazer had a double mastectomy, she appeared in a production of "Pygmalion" at the Guthrie with drainage tubes in her chest.

"She was determined to be in that play," Kuhfeld said. "Since she couldn't lift her arms above her head, I was her backstage dresser."

Frazer, who grew up in Illinois, lived in Elk River. She is survived by sons Justin Alexander and Seth Gupton and her daughters-in-law.

Alexander, who announced his mother's death on her website (margaretfrazer.com) wrote that Frazer "was comfortable and at peace" when she died, "among family and friends until the end."